Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea, the Crimea, the Caucasus, &c

"Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea…" is the travel memoire of the French geographer, engineer and traveler Xavier Hommaire de Hell. He sums up his trip thus, «When I left Constantinople for Odessa my principal object was to investigate the geology of the Crimea and of New Russia, and to arrive by positive observations at the solution of the great question of the rupture of the Bosphorus. Having once entered on this pursuit, I was soon led beyond the limits of the plan I had marked out for myself, and found it incumbent on me to examine all the vast regions that extend between the Danube and the Caspian Sea to the foot of the northern slope of the Caucasus. I spent, therefore, nearly five years in Southern Russia, traversing the country in all directions…visiting all the Russian coasts of the Black Sea, the Sea of Azof and the Caspian.»